Gentoo

I haven't touched Goldside for a long time. Doesn't the content there end at low/mid level?

Hellionball reminded me of some other oddball challenges I've tried for myself. I'd like to learn what ones you've come up with. Here's one: Take confuse and TP Foe (now just TP I guess) and see how many Skyraider FF generators you can bring along with you in a mission as you work your way towards the end boss or AV. Fold space will make this easier now. You can hit the defence cap pretty easily I think, but see how far beyond it you can go. TP Confuse collecting Tsoo Sorcs to heal you can also be fun, but they fight each other so that kind of sucks. What odd things like this have you tried in your own play? I want to explore new ideas.

Also, I challenge you to toggle on repel as a kin and try to keep a minion bouncing off your head and not hitting the ground. That's also not easy to do.

I keep trying to use a Grav or Mind controller's lift power combined with FF's force bolt power to lift them in the air and skeet shoot. Its harder than you'd expect.

Is Hellionball still a thing? Back on live a few of us used to gather in Galaxy City or Kings Row and form competing teams of 2 or three players and pick a designated Hellion or Skull, and use knockback powers to try to send them into designated "goals". It was one number of points if you scored and another number of points against you if you killed the ball. I don't recall the numbers. We also had Hellion Golf and Hellion bowling (with the pbaoe knockback power in kinetics plus superspeed and autorun without adjusting direction after launching). Is this still a thing?

And if you do Arctic Air on a Dom, make sure to pick whatever Dom secondary has the best melee attacks. You'll be spending all your time in melee.

On the cheap, do 3 end redux and 3 confuse.

I like how in this game you can zoom the camera way out to see a wide battlefield, or all the way in that it is first person. I think its a lot of fun to play in first person, especially if playing a ranged character. Doing a mission in first person is more challenging, because you don't really know what is around you, what is behind that crate etc. You also may notice some details that you didn't realize were there before. Some of the art is more detailed than you may think. Whiteboards have actual names on them, etc. And if you do play in first person, what do you think is the best powerset combination for it?

Why must we always fight??? WHY WILL THEY NEVER REASON?! I walk into a warehouse, onto a boat, into a cave, and I meet some Freakshow or some Hellions, or Warriors, maybe some cool looking Tsoo, and they always want to fight me. They never listen to my speeches. They never negotiate. I always wind up beating them up, so why won't they learn to discuss things like rational non-psychopathic adults? This city is insane!

I have based characters around Arctic air. Its hardly useless. Its amazing if you build well, especially if you stack it with other PBAOE set it and forget it powers, like Rad's choking cloud or Nature's similar power - just standing there you control entire mobs. Its incredibly powerful, because you have all your free time to do something else. It also stacks well with Venemous Gasses from Poison.

Sleeps are pretty useless on a team, but I love spamming them, and then doing the sleep emote and standing beside the mobs. It makes people laugh. I made SleepWalker character with the closed eyes face and wearing pyjamas. Pointless knockback powers can be a lot of fun, like the one in FF, especially if you have powerboost. Did they nerf that? Haven't tried it recently, but you used to be able to punt a Hellion half way across the zone. Combine lift for skeet shooting. I had a Mind/FF made just for doing this. The Kin "they bounce off you ball" is pretty fun too. You can toggle that plus superspeed on, and point and hit autorun, and see how many of the baddies you can knock away. I call it bowling. You can also play golf or soccer (with teams), with a designated baddie, and some set landmarks. This is how I spend about 50% of my time playing this game, in between playing on pickup groups. I'm surprised it isn't more common.

I think Dominators are broken, but that they always were. They are either too weak as normal, or brokenly strong if they have perma-dom.

Back on live, when City of Villains first came out I had "Left for Dead" who was a zombified Longbow, who had been abandoned by his fellow Lonbow, died, and had been resurrected (possibly by Dr. Vhaz) and wanted to kill all Longbow.

I am curious what the numbers are on this for this community. I know a lot of you like to power level to 50 and play the game from there, deeply into incarnate stuff etc. I myself retire my characters when they hit 50. I have had hundreds of them over the years and none of them go into incarnate. I lose interest in them at that point with so few new toys for me to play with every few levels. I have a friend who retires her characters in the mid 30s, never going to 50 or even into the 40s. She likes the new toys and loves how at the lower levels they come at such a fast pace. I play at low and at high levels (but not incarnate) and I tend to enjoy the team play more at the lower levels, before people become self sufficient, and actually need each other. Defenders and controllers buff and control and tanks tank and its a huge boost for a team. People work together or they die. I like this team play. Plus as my friend says, the toys just come so much faster. At higher level play I pretty much always solo. Even my higher level controllers and defenders are able to get through missions pretty quick by then. I enjoy this, but its a completely different feeling. I'll pay more attention to story text etc since I can go at a snails pace if I feel like it, keeping the window open, watching youtube or TV and coming back mid-mission, etc. And I know some of you love the incarnate level TF style play, going after the TF of the week, chasing badges and accolades etc. That's not for me, but there's no "right" or "wrong" way to play; so long as its fun for you. I'm curious where most of you fall on this spectrum.

How does the holding work on it? Does slotting holds in increase how often it holds them? how long it holds them when it does hold them? The power doesn't say how long it holds for, just a chance to hold.

Would it Spores not shine if given Performance Shifter +end and Panacea procs? How about other procs?

I tried dark blast. The damage is just too weak in comparison to psi and I immediately felt the reduction in range. That 20 feet definitely makes a big difference. Even more I expect once you multiply them with boost range or range enhancements.

Increased range would make a world of difference for the tentacles. It is just too short range.

Having now gotten my Psi/NRG to high levels, and using boost range with the long range of psi..... there is a problem. Draw distance. I can hit them until they fade out of draw distance now, and its a fine balance keeping them there without them "cloaking" (going beyond draw distance). The upside is.... don't need defence at all. They can't hit this far. I can kill them at my leisure. It really does feel a bit overpowered. Thinking of trying fire blast with extreme range next. Not sure if it will perform as well since the range won't be as good, but the damage will be higher across the board, right? And if I can get enough +range and can pull of the same trick of keeping so far back they blink out of draw distance, any more than that is a waste anyway. Psi also meshes well when blapping in closer quarters, because the stuns all stack well. For dark I'm not sure. Those tentacles (the cone) only have a range of 40, so that won't max out nearly as well. And its a shame you don't get the cone blast dark defenders do. But can pick it up, along with another cone immobilize in soul mastery. A shame really that defenders/corrupters don't get access to boost range. Or do they in a powerset I'm not thinking of? PS: Anybody have experience with LRM Rocket in munitions? That's an added snipe. Two snipes could make any blaster an extreme range blaster.

I was looking at secondaries, with useful powers to keep them away, but I'm not sure if they would have the range. Hover is the obvious answer (for outdoor maps), or caltrops, which you can lay down and then fall way back. The idea is to be so far out of range that they can't hit you even with their ranged powers. WIthout boost range, I dont know if that's possible. I'm not even sure its possibly with boost range. Will find out soon 🙂

I'm always looking for different ways to play this game. I've tried pretty much every playstyle I can think of, but I've still not based a character completely on range. By basing it on range, I don't mean blasting without blapping. I mean purposefully standing as far back or flying as far above as possible, and still fighting. /energy blaster seems required for boost range (or do the patron/epic pools have boost range in there somewhere?) For the primary I'm trying Psi, because at character creation it says it can do 100 range while everything else says 80 for most powers. I wonder why they did that. It also has some knockback and some control to help me keep the enemies way back, and hopefully often out of their range to hit me with ranged attacks. Anybody else tried this tactic? Have you been able to fight much by hitting them but being out of their range to hit you?

Corrupters are not the best of both worlds. They are the balance as you say. Blasters blast better than corruptors. Defenders buff better than corrupters. Corrupters can do both, true, but do neither as well. Its the jack of all trades I suppose. But I prefer to lean into one aspect or the other. When a blaster, I'm damage incarnate, and when I'm a defender I'm not blasting primarily for damage, but for the secondary effects of the blasts. That's why when I do play a corrupter, I never play blast sets with good buffing in them. All my corrs are fire or archery or other such blast sets. But again, those blast sets are better on blasters. I have played hundreds of characters, usually abandon them at level 50, and have never power leveled. I always run through the content. I enjoy the low level content, and I enjoy it very much as a defender. My buffs are more useful to the team at these low levels (also true of Controllers who I enjoy teaming with at low levels).

I just tried Psi/Energy and I'm enjoying the unique playstyle it is giving me. Boost range + psi is cool, because Psi for some reason has the furthest ranged blasts of any blast powerset (according to the help text anyway). Though I guess boost range plus any blast set would work pretty much the same way. Its fun standing out of range of their ranged powers and plinking away at them. And then if up against heavy psi resist, its time to play blapper with the energy powers. Power Boost is also pretty fun, since Psi has a sleep and a stun and a knockback.

Radiation defenders/corrs who love Vengeance/Fallout would like to have a word with you....

I actually have a hard time getting into Corrupters too. Because I tend to think of my character as either primarily damage or support. I want to blast damage, I'll go blaster. If I want to be support I'll go Defender. Corrupter is the middle child who gets ignored most of the time.